


I Don't Wanna Talk About It

by Emerla



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, this fic brought to you by hayley kiyoko's sleepover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 12:46:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10764552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emerla/pseuds/Emerla
Summary: Hunting an elusive ghost brings Erin and Holtzmann closer together





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weaselett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaselett/gifts).



Erin has barely slept in a week. She puts in long hours at the firehouse instead, poring over half-written reports until the words stop making sense. Now and then she dozes off accidentally, head drooping onto the desk, and jerks awake like an electric shock. She goes to make more coffee.

The whistle of the jug lures Holtzmann out of her lab. She hoists herself onto the kitchen bench and watches Erin make their drinks; Erin’s got the formula spot on by now, so Holtzmann natters away about her current project. A couple of nights ago, she’d asked Erin to check her calculations, and Erin’s little adjustments had done just the trick. Holtzmann’s words start to blur together; Erin could probably keep up if her brain was functioning properly but she just listens to the rhythm of Holtzmann’s voice instead, nodding at the intervals.

Eager to get back to work, Holtzmann’s on the move as soon as the coffee’s done. She pushes herself off the bench, boots landing heavily on the floor, grabs the mug, and thanks Erin for the caffeine on her way out.

“Hey, Holtzmann?” Erin calls before she can disappear. “Could you do me a favour?” Holtzmann sticks her head back through the door, meerkat-like. “The spare PKE meter isn’t working properly, and I know you’re busy but -”

“Sure, throw it my way,” Holtzmann says. “I’ll work my magic.” She wiggles her fingers dramatically, wringing a smile from Erin.

“Oh, so you’re a wizard now?”

“Are you doubting my powers?” Holtzmann says.

“Never,” Erin says, trying to keep her mouth a straight line and failing miserably.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Holtzmann says, and she’s gone.

Erin returns to her stack of papers, grabbing the top one and beginning to skim the last page she’d written. After catching three different misspellings of the same word, she switches to numbers instead, eyeing up the equation Abby had begun that afternoon and abandoned to help Erin clean up a minor chemical emergency.

Frustrated, Erin had almost broken another flask a few minutes later by setting it down too hard, but when Abby had squeezed her arm and asked if she was okay, she’d lied.

“I’m fine,” she had insisted, and Abby had let it drop, sure Erin would tell her what was going on when she was ready.

Erin begins to write out the next line of the equation under Abby’s cheerfully disordered figures. There’s a logic to math she’s always found reassuring, going from one place to another in careful, ordered steps. The satisfaction of arriving at an answer is like clicking the last square of a Rubik’s cube into place - it just feels _right_.

The ring of the telephone startles her. By the time she’s remembered there’s nobody else who’s going to answer it, it’s gone silent again. She sighs and returns to the whiteboard, but her concentration’s broken. She decides to pay Holtzmann a visit, the faulty meter in hand.

She’s always slightly nervous to venture up there, never sure of what she’ll find – always something new and strange, and strangest of all, Holtzmann herself. Erin can hear her talking to someone, then realises there’s only one voice. Still, a conversation consisting of just Holtz is bound to be more interesting than most other conversations.

Turns out she’s muttering to a colourful assortment of wires that look like an exploded piñata. She breaks into a wide smile as soon as she spots Erin.

“Human! Come and distract me.”

“It’s just the PKE meter,” Erin explains, holding it up. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“Yes,” Holtzmann says cheerfully as she pulls off her gloves and strides over to where Erin’s gingerly hanging back.

She’s been up there before of course, but not this late, not when it’s just the two of them in the building. The firehouse never seems big when Patty and Abby are there, but now it seems incredibly empty and Holtzmann incredibly close. She takes the faulty gadget from Erin, her fingers brushing Erin’s skin for a fraction of a moment that’s just long enough for Erin to register how soft they are. Surprisingly so, for someone who’s always in proximity to at least a dozen dangerous substances.

“So what’s the problem?” Holtzmann asks, inspecting it closely.

“It, um, didn’t register a ghost that was right in front of me,” Erin says.

“Cos it looks fine,” Holtzmann says, as if she hadn’t spoken. She glances up at Erin, realises Erin’s been staring at her instead of the meter, and her mouth begins to curve into a smile.

The phone rings. Erin stumbles back and goes to answer it, glad to escape, but Holtzmann follows her out of the lab. Her eyebrows are raised expectantly when Erin puts down the phone.

“We have a ghost,” Erin says.

Their destination is a run-down cinema that’s been out of business for a while. It’s all locked up and dark, but the caller, a frazzled neighbour in her dressing gown, points them down the alley to a side door and disappears.

Erin had on the phone attempted to get a description of the ghost or supernatural presence, but the only details she’d obtained were of strange lights and sounds, happening the same time every night. It’s strangely thrilling, she finds, to walk into an old abandoned building with little idea of what might be lingering beyond the corner of her eye. As a child, nothing would’ve scared her more, but with Holtzmann at her side and the prospect of acquiring data no other scientist has ever had, she’s buzzing like a live wire.

This is more of a reconnaissance mission than a bust. They’re both suited up, but neither has bothered with the heavy proton packs; Holtzmann’s assortment of smaller gadgets, ever expanding, should be enough to pacify anything supernatural they might encounter. Erin swings the powerful torch beam in arcs, revealing gnawed carpet and rows and rows of seats, faintly red beneath the dust. It looks like it was once a theatre, gold and extravagant. Erin wonders if it’s still beautiful to a ghost.

Holtzmann calls her name. She’s watching the curtain, behind which small shapes are moving. Erin gets into position, bracing herself for whatever emerges.

“Ready?” Holtzmann says.

Erin nods.

Holtzmann tugs on the pulley and the heavy curtain begins to open jerkily, inch by inch. Suddenly the rope flies from her hands, the curtain snapping all the way open with a bang. On the other side, there’s a flurry of movement – rats, scattering as the light hits them.

“Aw,” Holtzmann says, disappointed. “I always wanted a pet one.”

Erin’s brow crinkles in disgust. “Really?”

“Course. It could’ve kept me company in the lab,” Holtzmann says. She nudges Erin. “S’okay, I got you now. You’re much more interesting.”

Erin’s not sure how to take that, but she’s saved from coming up with a response; Holtzmann grabs her arm and points to the back of the cinema. It’s full of shadows, with one striking exception: there’s a light on in the projection room.

They’re both almost blinded when the projector itself clicks on, sending a ray of light straight into their eyes. They stumble away from the screen. With a little distance, the images on it begin to coalesce into recognisable forms. They’re black and white, places and people long gone, more like a dream than a movie – certain details sharp, the rest a blur.

“We shoulda brought popcorn,” Holtzmann says.

There’s no voices, no music, no sound at all. The people talk and laugh and dance in silence. Erin focuses on the outfits in an attempt to date the manifestation, but her knowledge of fashion is limited and the images don’t linger on anyone long enough to get a clear view.

A silhouette stamps itself over the strange tableau, a silhouette of a woman with her hair in curls and a feather waving on top. She’s standing in front of the projector.

Erin and Holtzmann move up the aisle towards the back of the cinema, climbing the shallow stairs and scanning ahead for a door into the haunted room. They don’t find out whether there is one or not: the woman passes straight through the wall and floats towards them regally.

She’s monochromatic, as if she just stepped out of a black and white movie. Her silver dress shimmers as if she’s under a spotlight. Colour and sound begin to seep into the onscreen display, intensifying with her approach, and the images begin to clarify too, like a video finally played at the right speed.

Holtzmann has her hands full as she struggles to get all their monitoring equipment running; Erin gives her a hand. Neither of them really want to resort to weapons just yet, the interplay of the spectre and her surroundings too intriguing to break apart without further study.

“We’re losing her,” Erin says, trying to keep her eyes on both what she’s doing and the subject of their investigation as she drifts serenely past them. The volume of the music continues to mount, and their gadgets are getting noisy too as they detect the ghost’s presence.

“Do you wanna talk to her?” Holtzmann says, preoccupied with the contraption on her hands. “It might give us enough time to get some workable data.”

Erin drops everything and heads for the front of the cinema, hoping to intercept the ghost in her tracks.

“Hello?” she says tentatively, but it’s as if she’s invisible. She gets right in front of the ghost and waves her arms like she’s signalling to a plane, but the ghost drifts on, no change in her melancholy expression, and Erin is forced to duck before it touches her.

She passes above Erin, still at that slow steady pace, and disappears through the screen. In her absence, the colour begins to leach away, the music softens, and eventually the projector shuts off, plunging the cinema back into darkness.

They poke around for another half hour, exploring the many cobwebbed corners of the old building, but there’s nothing more to see on the supernatural side of things. As for the projection room, it’s empty, the thick dust on the film reels undisturbed. The machine itself, however, is still warm.

“Well, we got one thing out of it,” Holtzmann says, nudging Erin as they head back to the car. She holds up the PKE meter Erin had given her at the firehouse. “Definitely not broken.”

Erin’s stomach drops.

“What kinda ghost was it having problems with?” Holtzmann asks, her curiosity piqued.

“One of the ones last week, I can’t remember which,” Erin says, not meeting her eyes. They’d done three busts in two days and had all been ready to drop at the end of it, but Erin has a good memory for detail; Holtzmann’s counted on it many a time.

There’s a moment before she shrugs and says, “tell me if you remember.”

By the time Erin gets home, there isn’t much of the night left. She figures she’ll be safe and collapses into bed, so tired she’s asleep in minutes.

She figures wrong.

The numbers on the clock have barely changed when she wakes with a jolt, heart racing and dread collecting deep within her before she knows what to be afraid of. A second later, she remembers, and squeezes her eyes shut in denial. She doesn’t need to look. She’s seen it before.

There’s an old woman standing at the foot of her bed. An old woman who’s been dead for three decades, and Erin still can’t shake her. She berates herself for forgetting to bring a ghost trap, a proton pack, _anything_ , home with her this time. Instead she lies there stiffly, fists clenched, and does what she’s always done: count the seconds until the fear begins to numb.


	2. Chapter 2

Erin’s the first one at the firehouse the next morning, already sipping her second coffee and hard at work when Patty breezes in. She’s almost convinced herself that everything is normal, hoping she can convince everyone else as well.

Holtzmann is deep in thought when she enters for the day, striding straight towards the stairs oblivious to everyone’s greetings. Neither Abby nor Patty think much of it, and Erin wouldn’t either if it weren’t for the previous night. She tries to come up with excuses to go up and talk to her, nervous Holtzmann will mention Erin’s elusive ghost to the others and open a can of worms Erin has no wish to go into just yet. And then, even if she did talk to Holtz, what would she say? There was no guarantee Holtzmann hadn’t already been distracted by some other project, and Erin drawing her attention back to last night’s mystery might have the opposite effect from the one she intended.

Erin finds her excuse at midday, heading up to check if Holtzmann wants to join them for lunch. She’s difficult to find. Erin calls her name a few times, following the oddly echoing responses until she almost trips over Holtzmann’s legs, sticking out from one of her storage units.

Unsurprisingly, Holtzmann declines the lunch invitation. Erin lingers for longer than necessary, finding that words come easier without eye contact – the way Holtzmann looks at her and the way she catches herself looking at Holtzmann tend to leave her bright red.

“Hey, um, Holtzmann,” she begins hesitantly, before rushing on. “I was hoping we could keep what happened last night to ourselves? I want to study the ghost more thoroughly before we let Abby and Patty in on it, and maybe come up with a few theories.”

She’s fully prepared to justify her request further if she has to, even if she doesn’t have any logical reasoning to back it up, but she doesn’t have to. Holtzmann wriggles out from under the unit, wiping her hands on her overalls before letting Erin pull her up.

“You an insomniac?” she asks.

“Are you?” Erin says, automatically deflecting.

“It’s hard to shut this up,” Holtzmann says, tapping the side of her head. “I like to stay busy.” She shrugs. “Thought you might have the same problem. All those numbers whizzing around.”

“So, are you up for a return visit tonight?” Erin asks. She’s avoiding the problem, she knows, and the smart thing would be to take a proton pack home with her and blast her unwanted guest the second she appeared, but what if that’s as useless as the PKE meter?

“Sure,” Holtzmann says. “I always liked midnight screenings.”

They station themselves in the projection room, getting there just after nightfall so they can get properly set up before any of the manifestations begin. This time, they’re fully prepared. The ‘busters impressive collection of equipment is put to use, ensuring nothing supernatural in the cinema goes unrecorded, and then it’s time to wait.

They sit side-by-side on the floor, lacking any other options, and Erin presses right up to Holtzmann -for warmth, she tells herself.

She’s thankful for the coveralls given the state of that floor, but she still keeps her knees up, wrapping her arms around them and feeling very childish. Holtzmann completes the feeling by producing a large bag of popcorn from god-knows-where and offering it to Erin first.

“No stakeout is complete without supplies,” she says.

The popcorn is lathered with butter, the taste instantly transporting Erin back to all her sleepovers with Abby. They’d wait for Erin’s parents to go to bed and then watch all the ghost movies they could get their hands on; the evocation is totally jarring in such an unglamorous setting. Only Holtzmann would’ve thought about spending a night in an abandoned building and decided the thing they really needed was junkfood.

“Is it a stakeout or a slumber party?” Erin asks.

Holtzmann lights up at the idea. “Yes! Now we just need a movie! Wonder what they’re got here.”

Leaving the snacks with Erin, she hops up to inspect the shelf of reels, rubbing off the grime to reveal the labels.

“Man, these are ancient,” she says.

“Define ancient,” Erin says.

“Older than me,” Holtzmann says with a cheeky grin, then adds “older than you, too,” before Erin can protest.

“Do you think the projector could still play them?” Erin asks. “I mean, if the power was on?”

“Nah,” Holtzmann says. “All those rats, the wiring’s gotta be busted.”

“So it’s running purely on spectral energy,” Erin muses. “And I’m guessing there’s nothing actually in there, right? The machine is just a convenient channel for the – what do you think it was? An old movie, or the ghost’s memory of an old movie? But she looked like a showgirl, so it wouldn’t have been a cinema in her time…”

She checks her watch, impatient for the apparitions to begin so she can attach her speculation to actual data.

“Hey, Erin,” Holtzmann says, her manner suddenly sober. She holds out a cupped hand, and Erin leans forward to see what she’s discovered.

“Want a spider?” she offers, and cracks up at Erin’s face. “You’re too easy. But the curtain’s opening,” she adds.

If the ghost is there that night, they don’t spot her. The muddled videos play by themselves, and the scientists record them in their entirety. Erin’s buzzing as they leave, thinking it’s a pity they don’t have another bust lined up because in that mood, she could kick the ass of any spook. And then she remembers what’s waiting for her at home.

“Holtz, could you do me a favour?” she asks suddenly. She’s aware her rationality is often compromised in the aftermath of a successful venture, and if she’s going to say stupid things, they might as well be useful things too.

“I’m not an insomniac, not usually, but I’m having trouble sleeping and I think it’s – I need someone else in the apartment with me. It’s been a few months since Phil left and I thought I’d be fine but -” she stops herself before she says anything more embarrassing, hoping Holtzmann understands what she’s getting at.

“But we already finished the popcorn,” Holtzmann says.

Erin blinks. “What?”

“To make it a proper slumber party, one must have popcorn,” Holtzmann says solemnly.

She’s teasing, Erin realises with relief.

“Think of it as the second phase of the party. The sleeping phase,” Erin says. “I’ll throw in breakfast waffles?”

“Yes,” Holtzmann says immediately.

Erin rolls her eyes and tries not to let on how pleased she is.

Holtzmann has never been to Erin’s place before and she treads gingerly like she’s afraid of breaking something. At the same time, she’s clearly fascinated by the nondescript little space, as if she’s gaining some private insight into Erin’s life and should handle it carefully. All the usual platitudes – make yourself at home, don’t hesitate to ask for anything – seem too meaningless to use here, Holtzmann the kind of person who will adjust at her own pace regardless of anything Erin says.

Fortunately the shyness passes quickly; Erin goes to brush her teeth and returns to find Holtzmann firmly ensconced on the couch, stripped down to a singlet and boxers and building herself a nest. She still seems like she’s in the wrong apartment, Erin’s tidy furnishings so plain and ordinary next to her off-kilter energy, but she seems happy enough so Erin bids her goodnight.

“And, Holtzmann?” she adds, pausing at her bedroom door, hand on the frame. Holtzmann looks up at her expectantly, sitting cross-legged with a blanket wrapped around her. “Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it.”

Holtzmann shrugs. “It was this or the lab, and you’re prettier than my machines.” She pauses, looking suddenly alarmed. “Don’t tell them that.”

“I won’t,” Erin promises, smiling.

Truth be told, she isn’t entirely sure this is going to work – Holtzmann might be too far away, but over the years, the ghost’s appearance hasn’t always directly corresponded with how alone she is; it’s more a case of how alone she feels. The first weeks after Phil had left, when she’d been so full of gratitude for her new friends, it hadn’t appeared at all. Now, with Holtzmann so close, the terror that’s been keeping her at the firehouse has receded, like a headache after painkillers that no longer has the power to hurt.

It’s not a long-term solution, she knows, keeping Holtzmann close by, but it’s a step towards a remedy. And if she can ask Holtzmann to do this, maybe – no. One step at a time, she tells herself.


	3. Chapter 3

It doesn’t work. Erin wakes slowly this time, the fear slowly dawning on her as she blinks and realises the ceiling is bathed in a blue glow. She stares up at it, concentrates on breathing steadily, in and out, counting each one and knowing that if she counts long enough it’ll go away. But, she tells herself, lying and waiting isn’t going to help. She’s a ghostbuster, might as well act like one. With no equipment to hand, she falls back on the one tool that’s always there: her mind.

Slowly, slowly, she raises herself to look at the spirit at the end of her bed. Its image is burnt into her brain already, but memory isn’t a trustworthy source, and she knows now what to look for – not at the terrible blank face, which always drew her like a magnet, but the edges, the degree of transparency and corporeality. She scans it thoroughly, up and down, heart pounding. The knowledge she could call for Holtzmann at any moment and it would vanish is like a life ring, bobbing just within reach should she need it, but she makes it through and falls back onto the pillow, breathing fast. From there it’s back to counting, adding up the seconds.

When it goes, she feels it like a change in the air pressure.

Erin watches the blue slowly fade away, and then snatches a few restless hours of sleep. She gets up too early, more tired than when she went to bed, and takes a long shower. When she emerges, Holtzmann is up and busy pulling her microwave apart.

“There’s a bit I need,” Holtzmann explains. “They don’t make them the right way anymore, but yours is just old enough.”

Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation, but Erin is strangely blasé about finding her most used appliance sitting in pieces on the bench. Not long ago, the sight would’ve filled her with horror, but it’s clearly making Holtzmann happier than it ever did her, so she just shrugs.

“I needed a new one anyway,” she says. “That thing’s next to useless.”

“Waffles?” Holtzmann says hopefully, remembering Erin’s bribe.

“Can I get dressed first?” Erin says lightly.

As they eat, Erin can feel Holtzmann watching her closely. Suddenly self-conscious, she wipes her mouth with a napkin.

“You do look tired,” Holtzmann decides.

“Well, there’s a reason for that,” Erin says.

Their cutlery clinks against the plates in the lull.

“I can, y’know, come back tonight. If you want. If it’s helping.”

Holtzmann’s earnest blue eyes meet Erin’s for a second before dropping back to her food. She clears her throat loudly, her equivalent of turning over a new page in the conversation, and attacks her food with renewed vigour.

Erin reaches out and places her hand over Holtzmann’s, stilling the violent sawing of her knife.

“I’d like that.”

Holtzmann is trying to be Abby and Erin could hug her for it. True, having her there hasn’t kept the ghost away, but Erin finds her presence comforting. It’s a different version of Holtz than she sees in the firehouse; Erin feels like they’re on a closer wavelength than usual. They’re still not quite in sync, and Erin suspects the only time they ever will be is when they’re working on a project together. But this is the nearest they’ve got outside that setting, bridging the gap without the help of a physics problem to solve.

The ‘busters spend most of the day responding to what turns out to be a false alarm. Erin’s not complaining; it passes the time, and hides the toll her exhaustion is having on her ability to do basic calculations. Running after eerie noises that turn out to be a cat trapped in an air vent requires much less brainpower.

Still, they’re all back at the lab before dark, and Erin is struggling to delay going home. There’s always work to be done but the week of sleepless nights is making itself felt, and all the papers on her desk seem an insurmountable obstacle. She pretends to be proofreading until Patty and Abby have left, and it’s just her and Holtzmann, who’s somewhere upstairs tinkering away.

She goes to find her, and watches as she deftly inserts parts of Erin’s microwave into half-built circuits.

“How do you feel about calling it a night?” Erin suggests.

“No cinema ghost?” Holtzmann says.

“She’ll still be there tomorrow,” Erin says. “And it isn’t like she’s hurting anybody – why don’t we leave her alone, and have a proper movie night?”

Holtzmann’s still bent over her machine, seemingly preoccupied. Erin shifts a little, suddenly aware of how much she’s counting on Holtzmann to say yes.

“We can pick up some snacks on the way home and, what’s the phrase? Netflix and chill?”

Holtzmann snorts. “That doesn’t mean what you think,” she says. “But sure.”

It turns out that watching movies with Holtzmann is quite an active endeavour, especially when there’s food involved. Erin is glad she’s not the one sleeping on the couch that night. For the second night in a row, she finds herself preparing for bed, unfazed by the knowledge of what’s to come. She can’t quite bring herself to pass through the spot it appears in, though.

One side effect of having Holtzmann in your home, Erin discovers, are the unexpected visitations. She’s just about to turn off her bedside lamp when there’s a knock on the door, and Holtzmann is bouncing onto the bed beside her, brandishing a handful of scribbly pages.

“I have a theory,” she announces, spreading the paper out over the bed like she’s giving Erin a special presentation. “About your ghost.”

Erin leans forward to get a better look, and Holtzmann’s hair tickles her cheek.

“It’s not the PKE meter – well, it is, but it’s not broken. Did you notice what happened at the cinema last night? Half our equipment didn’t even register anything spooky, even though the projector was running on spirit fuel for an hour.”

“But the night before -” Erin says, cottoning on. Holtzmann looks pleased.

“Yup. It needed the actual ghost to trigger it. Which doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything ghostly about the weird movie, just that it was a different type of activity than our babies are built to notice.”

“So you think my ghost is the same?” Erin asks. “Some sort of anomaly?”

“Have you remembered which bust it was yet?” Holtzmann says. “Cos I still got some of those guys shut up in my lab, and if we knew what we were looking for, I could yank him out and get to work. I drew up some modifications for our gear but I really need a subject.”

Erin shakes her head. Holtzmann’s gaze is fixed on her and she flushes, sure the engineer can tell she’s lying.

“Sleep on it,” Holtzmann suggests, and scoots off the bed.

“No, wait,” Erin says. “Don’t go.”

Holtzmann stops and looks back, expectantly.

“I’m not…” Erin stares at her blankets and tries to will away the fear, which is spiking at the mere thought of her ghost, as if simply talking about it might summon it right there and then.

“I do remember,” she confesses. “I’m just not sure if it was really there.”

“Didn’t you say it was right in your face?” Holtzmann says, climbing back onto the bed beside her.

“More or less,” Erin says. “It was right there.” She gestures at the spot.

“There’s a ghost in this apartment?” Holtzmann says, lighting up with excitement. “Get outta here! You shoulda told me, I could’ve brought the gear along and we could’ve had a real party.”

“I didn’t tell you,” Erin says carefully, “because it’s a ghost I’ve seen before. Do you remember the story about my neighbour, the one that haunted me as a child?”

Holtzmann nods, wide-eyed.

“She’s back,” Erin says, and it’s a relief to say it out loud. “She’s come back before, now and then, but I’m the only one who has ever seen her in all these years and I’m starting to think it’s all in my head. I tried bringing home some equipment to test if it was real, but…”

“Did you see her last night?” Holtzmann says.

“Yes,” Erin admits. “I asked you here because I thought it might help, but maybe it doesn’t work if you’re in a different room.” She takes a deep breath and looks straight at Holtzmann. “Can you stay with me tonight?”

“Yeah, course I will,” Holtzmann says, her words stilted like she’s having trouble getting them out. She looks like she wants to say more but after a pause she gives a fractional shake of her head and rolls over, so she’s facing the wall and not Erin.

“Goodnight, Holtz.”

“G’night.”

Erin’s disorientated when she wakes to find the curtains glowing with sunlight, not sure why she’s confused at that until she realises she slept right through the night. A quiet elation springs up in her chest.

Holtzmann’s side of the bed is a tangle of sheets but it’s empty; Erin finds her fully-dressed on the couch, poring over her diagrams, and sits down beside her.

“Morning,” she says.

“Mmhmm.”

“It worked!” she says. “No ghost at all. How’s your theory coming along?”

She tries to peer over Holtzmann’s shoulder but the pages are pulled out of view before she can see.

“Need to get to the lab,” Holtzmann says.

She’s uncommunicative all day; Erin gives her space, knowing she gets like this sometimes when she’s channelling all her brainpower into a project. It’s late afternoon when she finally pays her a visit, eager to see what Holtzmann’s coming up with and furnished with a stack of research she hopes will be helpful. She’s also got a plan for how to deal with her ghost, but it’s like talking to a brick wall, with Holtzmann responding in monosyllables. She’s not usually like this when she’s got hold of a new idea; usually Erin has to be on her toes to keep up with Holtzmann’s leaps and bounds in all sorts of unexpected directions.

“Holtz, what’s going on?” she says.

“I’m thinking,” Holtzmann says.

“Oh no,” Erin says. “I know your thinking mode, and this is something else. Are you okay?”

Holtzmann does something with a screwdriver that makes a loud crackle of electricity.

“Holtz, if you want to be alone, I’ll go, but if you’ve got something you need to say, it’s better to get it out.”

“Says the woman who’s had a secret ghost for how many years?” Holtzmann says.

“Fair point,” Erin says. “But we need to sort out what’s happening tonight.”

“Get Abby or Patty to do it,” Holtzmann says.

Erin’s stung. She composes herself before answering so it doesn’t come out wrong, too accusatory.

“Can I ask why?”

“I don’t do subtext, you need to tell me what you really think or I won’t get it,” Holtzmann says in a rush. “I thought you were coming on to me and it was stupid but you need to get someone else to be your ghost scarecrow. No more sleepovers.”

“Holtzmann,” Erin says gently. She wants to be closer but respects the table Holtzmann is keeping between them. “It’s not stupid. There’s a reason I asked you and not Abby or Patty.”

The twitching motion of Holtzmann’s screwdriver slows. Erin takes it as a sign she’s listening and ploughs on.

“I like spending time with you. I want to do more of it, if you’ll let me, because I wasn’t only asking you as a friend. I just didn’t know how to ask any other way.”

“Seriously?” Holtzmann asks, hope dawning on her face.

“Seriously,” Erin says. “Though you should probably know, I did have an ulterior motive. It is going to take some major firepower to get that ghost out of my house, and you are the best at that. So are we still on for tonight?”

Holtzmann nods. “And for however many nights you want me.”


End file.
